


Rabbit Run

by Barbeauxbot



Series: Always Dragging That Horse Around: The Love, Marriage, and Everything Else In Between of Loki and Sigyn [15]
Category: Cracksmash - Fandom, Journey into Mystery, Marvel (Comics), Thor (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 04:29:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barbeauxbot/pseuds/Barbeauxbot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Varli has mixed feelings over the fact that everybody says he takes after Loki.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rabbit Run

This is what Varli remembers.

He is struggling to keep up with his father. Who walks ahead, taking long, easy strides. 

* * *

His father is a great man. Varli knows that as surely as he knows his mother’s love, as surely as he knows the sounds Nori makes in his sleep, as surely as he knows his own name. 

His mother says he is like his father and Varli is proud. He wants to be just the same when he is grown. Handsome and tall. Brilliant and charming. A great magister. The greatest magister the realm has ever seen. 

"Teach me," he begs, tugging on his father’s doublet. 

His father does, gladly.

* * *

The grass comes up to Varli’s waist. Maybe one day he will be as tall as his father, but he is still a child. He struggles to keep up.

* * *

As great as his father is, he is also troubled in equal measure. Ambitious, impulsive, thoughtless. His mother accepts this. Endures this.  

There is a look that appears on his mother’s face every time his father hurts her. A look of quiet acceptance. 

Varli cannot stop the rage that boils over every time. “Why do you just accept it, Mother?" He demands, his fists clenching.

"It is his nature, my sweet one." She says calmly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “You cannot expect somebody to change to suit you simply because you love them, and they love you."

And it is true. But still he fights it.

* * *

He knows that if he says something, if he calls out to his father, he will turn and see how far he is lagging behind. He will slow down, wait, lift him up on his shoulders so he does not have to struggle. 

Varli stays silent, his heart in his throat. His father does not look back.

* * *

His father dies. It is unthinkable. A howling void of uncertainty opens at his feet and he cannot find his way through. There are days, more often than he likes to admit, that he simply forgets that it ever happened. It is a reality so unimaginable his mind refuses to accept it.

And then they go to Midgard and he is confronted with his father’s new form. A boy younger than he is. With no memory of him or his brother or their mother. 

There are days when it is all he can do to keep his hands at his sides and not beat the younger boy.

The years pass and he looks at himself in the mirror. He grows into his manhood before the boy does. He sees his father’s face in the mirror. 

He sees the look in Sif’s eye when she looks upon them. Wistful and troubled. 

The boy says he refuses to grow into the man he was. Varli wonders if he has a choice. If any of them ever had a choice. 

* * *

He struggles to keep up as the grass grows taller, to his chest. His father is so far ahead that Varli is not sure he would hear him even if he did cry out for help. 

Tears of frustration sting his eyes. 

* * *

He does not want to hurt his mother. He does not want Sif’s fears to be realized. He does not want to give in to the glimmer of interest that he cannot deny every time Angrboda mockingly offers him a dragon child. 

The others do not call him by his name. They call him Lokison. As if that encapsulates the whole of his identity. Angrboda says he is a pale copy of the man that was. The boy soon grows into manhood and outstrips Varli in both power and influence. 

Nori drifts further, following a path that Varli cannot understand. “If you accept your fate, brother, you will know peace." Nori says, calm and remote as he slowly sharpens one of his blades. “Our fates are immutable."

It is easy for Nori to accept these things. His brother could not be more different from their father if he had actually been sired by Theoric like their mother had claimed for so long. When Nori looks in the mirror, he sees a man who merely resembles their father, like any son resembles his father. Even one such as theirs. 

Varli grows a beard. Because he can. Because his father cannot. 

* * *

Varli stands in the chest-high grass. It extends around him in an endless plain. He can no longer see his father anywhere. His legs tremble with exhaustion and he weeps angrily, lost and afraid.

* * *

The guilt over Ragnarok gnaws at his gut and he finds it difficult to eat. He grows leaner, becomes a shadow of his brother. 

He turns his anger at his father. Picking on trivialities to hide the true source. Unable to admit the part he had in the disaster. To ask him if it is true. If he had been planning on Varli to be the catalyst. If he had been groomed from birth to fulfill his father’s plans. 

If he ever had a choice.

If his daughter will ever have a choice.

"Do let me know when you’re ready to stop blaming everyone else for your own failings, Varli." His father says, his face hard. “That will be an interesting day."

His vision goes white with rage. But then Nori arrives with Varli’s daughter. And he controls himself. For her sake. 

* * *

The sun is setting when Varli is found, not far from where he was when he lost sight of his father. He has stopped crying, though his face is still tearstained and dusty.

His father crouches before him, his brow furrowed. “Why did you not say something?" He asks. Not accusing, simply confused. 

Varli tries to calm his shaky breathing, and rubs at his eye. A welter of confusing emotions boil within him. He does not know. He feels as if he does not come up with a reason, he will disappoint his father. 

"I did not notice how far ahead you were until it was too late," he says, looking away. 

They both know this is a lie. And somehow, Varli knows that is an even greater disappointment than if he had simply admitted that he did not have a reason.

"Your mother is sick with worry," his father smooths a hand over his hair and wipes away a few stray tears. “Let us return to her." He rises and offers a hand.

Varli gets to his feet. He is so tired he cannot feel his legs. He clings to his father’s hand and stumbles through the grass that is nearly over his head but he refuses to ask for aid.

Eventually, out of annoyance at their slow pace or sympathy for his exhaustion, or perhaps both, his father lifts him in his arms and carries him the rest of the way home.

Varli curls his fingers in his father’s tunic, unsure whether to feel gratitude or shame.

 


End file.
